"Undercover in Tibet"

I’m outraged. And guilty. I’m outraged that cultural genocide IS happening in Tibet, that Tibet is silently being erased from history, that it quietly disappeared from our maps. I’m guilty that I have given the burden of this fight to a small number, feeling that the fight is being taken care of, that someone is on it, that it’s not so bad.

It IS so bad. It’s terrible. If the things that were happening in Tibet were happening to us in Canada, there would be war. Devastation. Lost trust and psychological damage. If a Tibetan woman has too many children, she either pays a hefty fine that she can’t afford or undergoes forced Sterilization.

Imagine, my female friends, imagine having the right to birthing literally ripped out of you. That which so many of us base our female identity on, torn from your body with no anaesthetic and no choice.

I’m outraged. I just saw a documentary entitled ‘Undercover in Tibet’. Tash Despa fled Tibet 10 years ago and has lived in Exile in Britain since then. He returned to his home for the first time in 10 years to find out why so many people were risking their lives to flee Tibet in India or Nepal, via the Himalayas. One escapee said he would rather risk his life hiking for weeks through the snowy peaks, risking such bad frostbite that amputation is the only answer, running out of food, being shot at by Chinese officers if spotted...he would rather risk this than live under Chinese rule.

This movie brought me back to life. We can’t sit in our comfortable homes and do nothing. We can’t. People are dying, traditional ways of life are disappearing, family members are disappearing, monks are under constant surveillance and are tortured if they have even one speech by the Dalai Lama in their quarters. It’s a silent, methodical genocide.

Get involved. Get involved in whatever issue makes your heart pound hard in your chest. Do something. We’re such privileged, powerful people in Canada. We have such strong voices. We were born into it and are now surrounded by opportunity and comfort. It makes torture and hardship seem like a only a nightmare, not something real human beings are actually enduring.
But real human beings with homes and families ARE suffering. I know you know this, but really KNOW it! People that laughed with their partners under beautiful Tibetan trees and enjoyed the sunshine with their children are torn apart and forced from nomadic lifestyles into police watched concrete ‘communities’, akin to prison.

And why? Because Tibet is one of the richest resources of: water, minerals, oil.

Sound familiar?

Oil. And China now has control of it. They kill and torture, take freedom and install fear, silently wipe a culture out of our minds, in the name of money and global power.

So truly this affects us all.

Read something. Write a letter. Find the time to care. If not about Tibet, something, cuz surely there is some injustice that speaks to your heart.

Remember that Tibet was on the map just a few years ago.

Just remember the pain people live with outside of Canada. And don’t live with guilt or heaviness. But Do Something.